Science, spirituality and Galileo

Legend has it that the trial of the noted astronomer in 1633 was based on whether the Earth moved around the sun, as Galileo asserted, or was orbited by the sun, the church's view. But the image of an enlightened Galileo fighting for truth against the Catholic Church over astronomical concepts is far too simplistic, Wade Rowland writes in "Galileo's Mistake" (Arcade, 298 pages, $26.95).

"The dispute was over two conflicting views of the nature of truth and reality and about the roles religion and science ought to play in defining the world we live in," he writes. "Of far more concern to the church than the details of the Copernican hypothesis was Galileo's belief in the reality of numbers, his conviction that the universe was essentially a mathematical entity, in some literal way composed of numbers."

The church, bolstered by Plato, Aristotle and more than a millennium of theological thought, denied this, on the grounds that it excluded the possibility of an ultimate goal and purpose to existence.

Galileo believed in but a single and unique explanation for natural phenomena, which made all other explanations wrong. The church held there could be more than one explanation, that God's role in the world couldn't be ignored.

"Galileo's Mistake" is a fascinating read on several levels. Rowland takes an in-depth look not only at the life of Galileo, but also at Pope Urban VIII, the counter-Reformation church, and the evolution of astronomy and philosophical thought, tying them together nicely.

Galileo's trial was a watershed moment in Western history, Rowland writes, for it marked the transition from the Age of Faith to the Age of Reason. Today, it's easy to heap scorn on those who believed the sun revolved around the Earth, but 370 years ago it was a very different issue. Technology such as the telescope created as many questions as answers.

"It was one thing to accept the magnifying power of the telescope when it is trained on objects on Earth -- objects that are known to exist. It is quite another to believe in what the telescope shows when it is pointed to the sky," Rowland writes. "For to do so means to believe in something that cannot be seen with the naked eye."

Previously unseen celestial objects identified by telescope could not be verified, except with a similar instrument. That gave rise to the philosophical question of whether knowledge gained "instrumentally" could have the same status as knowledge based on unmediated sensory experience.

Ultimately, scientism -- the principle that scientific methods can and should be applied in all fields of investigation -- won out. But at what cost? "Galileo's Mistake" argues that we've paid with the loss of spiritual context for existence and enslavement by technology.

"Are we happier in our day-to-day lives than our ancestors, or merely more comfortable?" Rowland asks. "Are the lives we lead more worthy of respect, or less? Is our world, taken all in all, a better place than theirs?"